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Government offers second boosters for everyone aged 18 and above
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A woman (left) reacts while receiving a Pfizer booster vaccine for the COVID-19 in Jakarta, on March 29, 2022. (AFP/Adek Berry)
T
he government has expanded its second booster rollout to the general public, in an attempt to bolster waning immunity after Indonesia lifted pandemic curbs just before the turn of the year.
People aged 18 and older become eligible to get a fourth jab, their second booster dose, six months after receiving their first booster shot, the Health Ministry said in a circular issued last week. The policy comes into effect on Tuesday.
Health Ministry spokesman Mohammad Syahril said that eligible people wanting to get a second booster dose would not need to wait for a vaccination invitation to appear on their PeduliLindungi app, unlike previous arrangements for the primary and first booster rollout.
"For now, records [of second booster dose] will be entered manually to the system [by health authorities], pending a Pedulilindungi app update," Syahril said in a press release on Saturday.
The Jakarta Health Agency said on Instagram on Monday that it would set up seven pop-up, walk-in vaccination sites throughout the city starting Tuesday until Friday for second booster shots. They are located at the Jakarta City Hall, the Thousand Islands regency administration office, as well as in each of the capital’s five mayoral offices in Central, North, West, South and East Jakarta.
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Epidemiologist Dicky Budiman of Griffith University in Australia said on Monday that it was the right time for the government to finally expand access to second booster shots because most people got their first booster dose more than six months ago. Various studies have suggested that immunity provided by COVID-19 vaccines wanes six months after administration.
